Seascape 1907

Maurice Prendergast made this painting of a seascape, on canvas, sometime around the turn of the last century. Look how the brushstrokes are laid down, almost like tiles, building up the image from these individual marks. The painting is all about texture, isn't it? Thick daubs of paint bring the scene to life, the roughness of the rocks contrasting with the fluidity of the water, but it's all paint, all surface. Check out that white area towards the middle, where the water breaks; see how Prendergast has built it up with these chunky strokes, like he’s wrestling the ocean into submission. It reminds me of Cézanne, actually, with that same commitment to the materiality of paint, the way he makes the landscape out of colour and form. Prendergast was onto something, this kind of mark-making anticipates the all-over compositions we see later on.